Sun hope to be ready for physical playoff game

MOHEGAN — Now comes the hard part for the Connecticut Sun — getting used to playoff basketball.

It’s a far cry from the regular season in terms not only of attention, but also of passion for the game and it brings out the best, and the worst, in some of the top professional players in the world.

For the first time in five years, the Sun will get a chance to experience a WNBA postseason game when the fourth-seeded Sun play host to No. 5 Phoenix at 3 p.m. today at Mohegan Sun Arena.

The winner moves on to the semifinals to face either No. 1 Minnesota or No. 2 Los Angeles in a best-of-five semifinal series that begins on Tuesday.

“This is crazy. My first playoffs in my sixth year in the league. It’s just so exciting and I feel really blessed to do so with this group of girls,” veteran Kayla Pedersen said.

But this is going to be no walk in the park.

Connecticut coach Curt Miller admits his team is probably a year or two ahead of schedule. As such, he is worried that it may not be prepared for the rigor of a playoff game.

That was shown a bit in the final week of the season when the Sun managed to beat Washington by 10, but lost to the Mercury by 20 and to the Sparks by 11.

Those games took on a playoff feel and Miller was a bit concerned with how his team responded.

“We didn’t always handle the physicality and the intensity of those games,” Miller said. “Are we ready to compete at that level?”

Miller added he is as anxious as anyone to see how the Sun handle the newfound attention today.

He’s hoping the last two games of the regular season serve as lessons as to what his team has to do.

“Hopefully, we’ve learned in a hurry and we will turn around and play our best basketball (today),” Miller said.

The Sun and the Mercury are familiar with one another.

This will be the fourth meeting in just over a month between the two and the results have been mixed.

The Sun just got past the Mercury, 93-92, in their first meeting when Phoenix was playing without Brittney Griner, but blew them out 94-66 with Griner in the lineup just two weeks later.

Both of those games were played at Mohegan Sun.

“Playing at home is better for any team,” Sun forward Morgan Tuck said. “You’re not traveling, living in hotels and that makes a difference, Plus, it helps us build up our fan base even more.”

But when the Sun went west, the Mercury cruised to an 86-66 win on Sept. 1.

Tuck said it, actually, gives Connecticut a little more incentive.

“They just killed us,” Tuck said. “It’s going to give us a lot more motivation, because we didn’t play very well.”

Overall, Miller said it was a good series between the two.

“I think it will be really, really tight,” Miller said of today’s game.

He anticipates Phoenix to come out and play physical so the Sun had a very physical practice on Wednesday before going light for the remainder of the week.

“We have to get off to a better start than we have in recent games, match the physicality and ultimately this game comes down to making shots. For the past couple of weeks, we haven’t shot the ball the way we did for the first three months of the season,” Miller said.

They also have to control Griner.

The 6-foot-9 center made 10-of-15 from the floor and 11-of-12 from the foul line to finish with 31 points in the win over the Sun last week.

She finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds in a first-round playoff win over Seattle, 79-69, Wednesday.

“They have made a concerted effort to play through Griner. The amount of touches she is getting every game is really impressive. You have to have a plan for that, because of their commitment to Brittney, and the amount of touches she’s getting, creates so much havoc,” Miller said. “That’s easier said than done to play through a dominant post player. The underrated aspect of what Phoenix is doing so well is that its guards are cross-screening and back-screening, constantly screening to get Brittney Griner open, Their commitment to set physical screens has been really impressive.”